“The Choice”: A graphic means to explain freedom vs tyranny to American teenage girls

By Jon Sutz

November 17, 2024

Summary: In 2011 I was challenged by a philanthropist – who’d rejected me – to design and write a single-frame graphic, that explained something vital regarding the dividing line between freedom and tyranny.

Until now, the only people with whom I shared this graphic were other philanthropists to whom I submitted funding pitches, and colleagues. It had never been in the public domain — until now.

The back story of how this challenge came about is presented below. It explains why this graphic is (a) an example of what is, and has long been, absent in our public discussions, and (b) the primary reason for its absence: the dysfunctional, often self-sabotaging operational models employed by most of the West’s top-tier nonprofits and educational institutions. This absence, more than anything that any “they” are doing to us, is the reason why so young Americans are embracing totalitarian ideologies that I believe, if explained to them properly, they would reject with every fiber of their beings.

I hope that this graphic, “The Choice,” will be useful in starting to transport us to a place in which people of good will and common sense can unite, to fight for their own freedom — and over the long term, for the freedom of all people, everywhere.

Contents

(1) Preface: How many young Americans are embracing genocial Islamist totalitarians, and their narratives? Brace yourself.

(2) My creation of “The Choice”

(3) The accompanying narrative I wrote, to help prepare young American females to be receptive to consider “The Choice”

(4) The reaction I got to “The Choice”

(5) The basic truth that I believe, as to how we got to this place — and what’s going to be required to get us out of it

(6) How I envision “The Choice” being presented on TikTok and other social media platforms

(7) Additional resources to supplement “The Choice”

(8) Earlier examples of my work to raise awareness of these issues

(1) Preface: How many young Americans are embracing genocial Islamist totalitarians, and their narratives? Brace yourself.

Sometime around 2011, I was challenged by a prospective funder of my freedom activism to produce an example of what I described was lacking in our social spaces — particularly those that America’s young people use to form their impressions. Specifically, the challenge posed to me was to create a single-frame graphic that explained something vital to understand the dividing line between freedom and tyranny, in as simple of a way as I could conceive.

A brief background is necessary to understand how this challenge came about.

As part of my pitches for activism projects, documentaries, etc., I always included a sampling of my deep research (example here), indicating (a) how badly the cause of freedom was being eroded, and (b) why the existing approaches of top-tier organizations, however well-intended, simply were not an effective counter-force to the lies and distortions that were being force-fed into our children’s heads.  Children who, in a few years, would be electing our next generation of leaders, and working in our newsrooms, colleges and Hollywood.

I am not a savant. However, based on the data I’d seen, and my cultural observations, I could clearly sense where things were going, regarding America’s young people, soon after I became involved in counter-terrorism research, blogging and investigative journalism in 2007.  Sixteen years later, in the wake of the 10/7 massacre, while others were shocked to see survey numbers like these, I was not:

  • 50% of American 18-34 year olds say Hamas’s October 7 murder-rape-torture-kidnapping of Jews was “justified”
  • 48% of American college students do not blame Hamas for the October 7 terrorist attack
  • 40% of Americans under age 35 support Hamas more than Israel
  • 67% of American 18-24 year olds say Jews are, as a class, “oppressors” and “should be treated a such”
  • 51% of Americans age 18-24 say “Israel should be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians”

I thought about this, and decided to address something that always upsets me: witnessing idealistic young Americans being taught that it is “racist” to say that some cultures are better than others — especially in the context of not saying anything unkind about fundamentalist Islam.  If you doubt me, consider this recent news story: a taxpayer-funded NJ school district apologized for calling ISIS a terrorist organization, in a quiz:

New Jersey school district apologizes for offending Muslim group with question about ISIS terror group in quiz, NY Post, June 22, 2024

The there was the 2021 case of the largest public school board in Canada canceling a speech for students by an ISIS rape slavery survivor, Nadia Murad, for the same reason as the NJ school board apologized — out of fear of inciting “Islamophobia”:

Toronto school cancels ISIS survivor event with Nadia Murad, NY Post, November 27, 2021

Then there was the 2014 case of freedom activist and former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali being invited — then disinvited — from giving a speech at one of America’s most (supposedly) leading freedom-oriented universities… for the same reason:

Amid protests, Brandeis withdraws honour for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, defender of Muslim women and critic of Islam, National Post (Canada), April 9, 2014

Returning now to 2011, I framed this challenge in my mind as being: What could I create that, in one frame, would start the process of injecting a dose of reality into young Americans’ minds, particularly females, so they can clearly begin to understand the virtue of freedom — versus what life would be like for them, under fundamentalist totalitarian Muslim rule?  And ultimately, what could I create that would prove the truth of Ayn Rand’s adage:

“Teach men the correct principles, and their own minds will do the rest.”

(2) My creation of “The Choice”

“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

– Samuel Adams

Here’s what I created — an opportunity for those young Americans, in particular, young females, to evaluate two alternative worlds in which they could live, and make a choice.

The bottom image is of 11-year-old Ghulam Haider, who was forced by her family to marry this 40-year-old man, in Afghanistan. Read the details at The New York Times, here. (Also see a CNN segment about this practice, focusing on a 9-year-old girl whose family forced her to marry a 55-year-old man, here.)

The upper image used to be a similar picture I searched for and found online at the time (2011), but as I prepared this piece to be shared publicly, for the first time, I had an AI image generator create this image, based on my detailed description. Here’s what I remember of how I phrased what I wanted to see: “A mocha colored girl, running in a crop-top, with the sun behind her, her whole life ahead of her, living in freedom, and a radiant smile that shows she relishes it on a cellular level.”

(3) The accompanying narrative I wrote, to help prepare young American females to be receptive to consider “The Choice”

When I created the “The Choice” graphic, and presented it to the organization (being funded by the aforementioned philanthropist) with which I hoped to work to develop it, I also wrote the related Q&A that would help frame and support it, in the minds of young Americans — particularly teenage females:

One need not obtain a degree in philosophy, history or economics, or engage in long self-study, to grasp the virtue of human freedom. I define “freedom,” in this context, as the individual’s natural right to freely exist, think, act, express oneself, and to create, acquire and dispose of property, all as he/she wishes, without restriction, assuming that in doing so, they are not violating others’ equal rights — and in a social context, existing under a governmental apparatus that is designed and operates to protect these rights.

I believe that the vast majority of people throughout the world, especially adolescents (ages 12-17), would naturally support this definition of freedom, enthusiastically, on principle, if it were explained to them in an effective manner — meaning, that they can easily understand, validate as accurate, and relate to their own lives. Doing so does not require any special abilities, or cash investment — only the courage to approach the matter using plain, simple language, in an empathetic manner.

Basic questions

For example, here are some basic questions that I believe support this premise, that can be asked of adolescents, anywhere in the world, provided their minds have not been pickled since birth in anti-freedom ideologies:

  • Do you believe your body belongs to you, to do with what you want, so long as you’re not hurting others? Or, do you believe others should be allowed to force you to do things you don’t want to, or make you feel uncomfortable, or hurt you?
  • Do you believe you have the natural right to play/interact with the kids you like, and avoid those you don’t? Or do you believe you should be forced to play/interact with those you don’t like?
  • Do you believe that if your parents give you a toy, as a gift, it is yours, to use as you want, and to allow those you give permission to, to play with it? Or, do you believe you should be forced to allow all the other other kids who want to play with your toy, including those you don’t like or even know, to do so?
  • Do you believe that if your parent/s offer to give you a certain amount of money in exchange for you doing certain household chores (often called an “allowance”), that the money you earn is yours — to spend, save, or give away to others, as you want? Or, do you believe you should be forced to give some, most or all of your money to other kids, in your neighborhood (including those you don’t like), or in far away places, whom you’ve never met?
  • Do you believe people have the natural right to listen to the music they want to, watch the movies and TV shows they want to, and read the books they want to? And, to write and create the kinds of stories, music and movies they want? Or, do you believe they should be forced to listen to, watch and read what someone else tells them to? And that someone should have the power to forbid them to listen to, watch or read certain things — or to create any art, with out first obtaining permission from some authority?

And for young ladies:

  • Do you believe you have the natural right to decide who you will date, marry, and if and when you have children? Or, do you believe someone else should make these decisions for you, and force you to comply with them?

(4) The reaction I got to “The Choice”

The official response I received from my challenger was, essentially, “That’s not what we do.”

In one form or another, I’ve heard this five-word rejection over and over again, from organizations and philanthropists whom one might think would most value such radically different, simpler approaches to conveying vital information to general audiences, in a way that they — and especially, the young — can truly understand, relate to their own lives, and verify as accurate.

Returning now to this philanthropist and his challenge, the more I dug, my read of the “tea leaves” was that the organization he backed:

  • Believed that you can’t punch that hard, that directly, or place things into such stark, potentially “offensive” terms, that might incite “Islamophobia”
  • Was fearful that such a graphic could provoke the wrath of groups like CAIR, and a constellation of “social justice” groups, all the way up to MSNBC, which would work as one to destroy this organization (see “The Smear” by Sharyl Attkisson, 2017)
  • Felt that it’s better to take more traditional approaches, but with increased distribution

I disagreed, then, as I do to this day.  10/7 has helped to start changing things.  The mass outpouring of hatred for Israel and America that was incited in the following hours, days, weeks and months — and the unwillingness of top-tier nonprofits to publicly go head-to-head against peddlers of the biggest lies that triggered the inferno of rage — has reaffirmed my view that what this realm needs is a total reboot, and more: that there needs to be a thorough housecleaning of the “organizational leaders” who saw the metrics of where things were headed more than a decade ago, but refused to act to combat the lies, their peddlers and their enablers.

Everything that we are now witnessing is the fruit borne of their denial, dysfunction, cowardice, and worse. The good news is that at least some philanthropists, new and long-term, are coming to see the reality, and are at least willing to seriously consider radically new, different, better ways to fight — and fight to win — the battle of ideas, between freedom and tyranny.

“That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.”

– P.C. Hodgell

(5) The basic truth that I believe, as to how we got to this place — and what’s going to be required to get us out of it

Legendary investor Peter Thiel says that a key question he asks of job applicants is:

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

After analyzing how badly freedom is losing on every front in the information war, the unpopular truth I’ve arrived at is:

More than anything else, the outpouring of support among young people throughout the West for Hamas is driven by two things: (1) The official silence among top-tier advocacy organizations regarding issues relating to “The Choice,” and other matters that are essential to understanding jihadist terror and totalitarianism; and (2) Other organizations’ refusal to format such knowledge and evidence in a way that is understandable and persuasive to young people.

On a broader scale, it does not matter whether the savages under discussion are religious or atheists, anarchists or criminal gangs.  So long as they rail against America, Israel, freedom and capitalism, and use thuggery and brutality to get their way, roughly half of America’s young people now find “intersectionality” with them* — because nothing in their field of view has ever substantively challenged what they have been told throughout their lives. 

This problem is only going to get worse until and unless freedom-oriented philanthropists begin backing new organizations, that will start with an acceptance of these basic truths, and will stage a late-inning rally to fight for freedom — and fight to win. This will require creating the kinds of knowledge tools and activism strategies that are designed from the ground up to overcome decades of denial, evasions and self-sabotage by those who were supposed to be waging this war.

*Examples:

  • 58% of American Millennials say they would rather live under either communism, socialism or fascism, than under capitalism
  • 61% of Americans aged between 18 and 24 have a positive reaction to the word “socialism”
  • 70% of Millennials say they would vote for a socialist
  • The number of Millennials who say they “approve of communism” jumped from 28% in 2018 to 36% in 2019
  • 19% of American college students overall, including 22% of Republican students, believe it is “acceptable” to initiate violence to prevent a invited guest from speaking on campus, if his/her critics claim s/he makes “offensive and hurtful statements”
  • 51% of Democrats, and 37% of Republicans support passing a law that would criminalize “hate speech,” meaning any statement or expression that a racial, religious, sexual or ethnic minority might find offensive
  • 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 support government censorship of “statements that are offensive to minority groups”

(6) How I envision “The Choice” being presented on TikTok and other social media platforms

The specifics of how this would unfold, whether motion graphics or stills, is TBD. What I wanted to depict here is a basic visual structure of how the core content would be formatted for TikTok, where many if not most Americans get their “news” and information, and for other social media platforms.

(7) Additional resources to supplement “The Choice”

Here is a small sampling of items that are readily available to help advance basic knowledge regarding the clash between freedom and tyranny, as it applies to young American (and Western) females.

Netherlands: Muslim migrant family murders teenage girl because she was becoming too independent, Westernized

May be an image of 5 people, headscarf and text that says 'NIC WIPE LTIN NIG SIN NIG'

Honor killing victim was being protected by police shortly before her murder, NL Times, April 16, 2025. Excerpt:

A teenager allegedly murdered by family members last May was being monitored by intense surveillance and was receiving protection from authorities before she was killed. Ryan Al Najjar, 18, was abducted, bound with tape, and drowned in Lelystad. It was not clear why her protection was stopped.

Prosecutors have said they believe her family felt disgraced by her involvement and integration in Dutch society. Her brothers were arrested in the case, and her father fled to Syria to evade arrest, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) previously indicated.

Her protection by the authorities was already ended before she was killed, a spokesperson for the OM said, confirming reporting by the Leeuwarder Courant which was published on Monday. The office also would not say when security started for Al Najjar, who was living in Joure at the time of the slaying.

Seattle, WA: Islamist immigrant family attempts to murder teenage daughter for refusing to be sent to Iraq for forced marriage to older man

Lacey parents accused of trying to kidnap daughter for refusing arranged marriage, KIRO 7 News Seattle November 14, 2024

Horrifying moment parents ‘try to choke their daughter, 17, to death in an honor killing’ outside her school – Daily Mail Online, November 14, 2024

Video of attack:

UPDATE, August 1, 2025: Washington state court barred the phrase ‘honor killing’ from being used in front of jurors; Parents found not guilty of attmepted murder against their daughter

Fate of parents accused of attempting to murder daughter outside American school in ‘honor killing’ revealed, Daily Mail, August 1, 2025. Excerpt:

A Washington couple accused of attempting an ‘honor killing’ by trying to strangle their teenage daughter outside a suburban high school have both been found not guilty of attempted murder.

Ihsan and Zahraa Ali stood trial for the shocking broad-daylight attack last fall outside Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington State where prosecutors said the pair tried to kill their 17-year-old daughter after she refused an arranged marriage.

After three days of deliberations, jurors convicted Ihsan Ali of assault and unlawful imprisonment.

His wife Zahraa was found guilty of violating a court order but acquitted of the more serious charges, including attempted murder, assault, and unlawful imprisonment.

Ihsan, who remains in custody, faces up to 14 months in prison for assault and an additional 12 months for unlawful imprisonment while Zahraa was released on Thursday on personal recognizance and is under strict orders to remain in Thurston County and avoid any contact with her daughter.

The case drew national attention last October after terrifying video footage emerged of Ihsan Ali putting his 17-year-old daughter, Fatima Ali, in a chokehold outside her high school, allegedly in retaliation for refusing an arranged marriage and for dating an American boy – actions he reportedly viewed as bringing shame upon the family.

[Nope, definitely not an attempted honor killing. – J]

Muslim family cuts off woman’s nose, ear, for attempting to flee their abuse of her

Tragic Time cover girl Aesha is just weeks from completing series of painful surgeries to give her a new nose after she was mutilated by her Taliban husband, Daily Mail, May 11, 2013. Excerpt:

Within just a few short months, Aesha Mohammadzi will be able to look at her reflection in the mirror and feel whole again.

Mohammadzi, 22, has made international headlines in 2010 when she appeared on the now-iconic cover of Time magazine with a gaping wound in the center of her face where a nose should be.

Aesha’s tragic tale of mutilation and abuse is well known by now: her Taliban husband and his family chopped off her nose and ears to punish her for trying to escape the family compound in Afghanistan.

The girl was left for dead in the mountains, but survived and was brought for treatment to an American military base.

Aesha was brought to America, to undergo facial reconstructive surgery:

Video: British Muslim leader explains how females who are accused of violating shariah must be stoned to death

On video, Muslim teenager stabs his 22-year-old sister to death, in her ninth month of pregnancy

14-year-old suspected of knifing pregnant sister to death in front of her kids, Times of Israel, December 27, 2023. Excerpt:

A 14-year-old boy is to be charged on suspicion that he stabbed his pregnant sister to death last month in the central region city of Lod, the Israel Police said Wednesday.

Aya Hajaj’s father, 51, and cousin, 15, are also set to be charged in the homicide. The suspects are all residents of the Bedouin town of Hura in the south. Her father is suspected of having sent his son to carry out the assault. […]

CCTV footage of the attack showed the assailant following 25-year-old Hajaj as she walked along a street with her two young children, aged 4 and 5, on their way to kindergarten on November 30.

He then pounced on her from behind and stabbed her over 20 times. The two young children fled, as did passersby.

Hajaj tried to defend herself but was stabbed multiple times in her torso.

The attacker then ran to a waiting car, which sped off. Police said the car was driven by the 15-year-old cousin of Hajaj.

Doctors at Assaf Harofeh Medical Center [in Israel], where the critically injured Hajaj was taken, performed an emergency cesarean operation in an unsuccessful attempt to save her unborn baby. However, doctors were forced to declare them both dead.

Image

Aya Abu Hajjaj, age 22

Muslim man murders his pregnant sister “to cleanse his family’s honour”

She became pregnant outside of marriage, so he shot her in the chest, twice, with a shotgun.

Court releases minor convicted of murdering pregnant sister in 2015, by Rana Husseini, Jordan Times, April 22, 2019. Excerpt:

“…the victim, who had been divorced for six years, became pregnant by her ex-husband. […] The defendant and a second brother took the victim to a secluded area and “tied their sister with a rope”, according to court documents.

“The victim’s siblings asked her about the father of her unborn child but she refused to give them a name so the defendant grabbed a shotgun and shot his sister twice in the chest,” court papers said.

The defendant then headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in, “claiming to have killed his sister to cleanse his family’s honour”, court papers added.

‘All white girls are good for is sex. They’re just sl*gs’: Eight members of ‘openly racist’ violent Asian sex gang raped and ‘sexually degraded’ three teenage girls in Rotherham, Daily Mail (UK), October 17, 2016. Excerpt:

Eight members of an Asian sex gang in Rotherham were today convicted of sexually exploiting teenage girls after making them suffer ‘degrading and violent’ acts.

Sageer Hussain, 30, openly boasted that he was racist and told his distraught 13-year-old white victim: ‘All white girls are good for is sex and they are just sl*gs.’

Sageer was convicted of four rapes and one indecent assault and his elder brother Basharat, 40, of indecent assault against the same girl at Sheffield Crown Court.

Six other members of the gang were also found guilty of a further ten charges of sexually abusing the three girls – and face jail when sentenced next month.

Sageer’s victim – who is now 27 – told police, their MP and the then home secretary David Blunkett that she had been repeatedly raped by Sageer.

But the allegations were dropped after men threatened to burn down the family home and gang-rape her mother.

Toronto, Canada: Muslim make imposes himself on table of Western girls, takes video without their consent, tells his viewers, look at these pretty white girls

Sexual violence was rife on October 7, say new witnesses: Previously unheard testimony reveals that victims were stripped, raped and shot by Hamas fighters who attacked Israel, by Christina Lamb, The Times (UK), July 5, 2025. Excerpt:

Sexual violence was “widespread and systematic” during the October 7 attack, rape and gang rape occurring in at least six different locations, according to a report using testimony never heard before now. But most victims were “permanently silenced”, either murdered during the assaults or left too traumatised to talk. About 1,200 people were killed in the attack.

The Dinah Project’s report, which will be published in Jerusalem on Tuesday, is based on first-hand testimony from 15 of the returned hostages from Gaza (only one of whom has spoken previously) and a survivor of attempted rape at the Nova music festival, as well as interviews with 17 people who saw or heard the attacks and with therapists working with traumatised survivors.

Translation:

“A 12-year-old girl is forced by her own family to marry a 62-year-old man. Look at her eyes. I had never seen eyes so full of pain and sadness. This is just one story of the hundreds of thousands of young girls who are forcibly married in Muslim countries”

Shima Rameshk: Tragic Case of 14-Year-Old Child Bride’s Suicide in Iran, National Council of Resistance of Iran, August 30, 2024. Excerpt:

In a heartbreaking incident, 14-year-old Shima Rameshk, a victim of child marriage, took her own life on Wednesday, August 28, 2024, in Marjanabad, Iran. Originally from the village of Sheikhlar near Bukan, Shima ended her life in the home she shared with her husband. Reports indicate that she hanged herself, succumbing to the immense pressure and dissatisfaction caused by her forced marriage.

Shima’s tragic death occurred only a year after she was coerced into marrying an older man named Mansour Jagan at the age of 13, following relentless pressure from her family. Her body was discovered 48 hours later and returned to her family by the authorities on Friday, August 30.

Iran passes marriage law allowing men to wed 13-year-old adopted daughters, Daily Mail Online, October 3, 2013. Excerpt:

A new law in Iran that allows men to marry their adopted daughters at the age of 13 has caused major concern that the country’s new president is not as progressive as originally thought.[…]

‘This bill is legalizing pedophilia,’ lawyer Shadi Sadr, who works for the group Justice for Iran, told the paper.

‘It’s not part of the Iranian culture to marry your adopted child. Obviously incest exists in Iran more or less as it happens in other countries across the world, but this bill is legalizing pedophilia and is endangering our children and normalizing this crime in our culture.’

Texas: Egyptian Muslim immigrant father murders his two teenage daughters, for becoming too “Westerenized”

Sarah and Amina Said, 17 & 18, murdered by their father because they were dating non-Muslim boys, and had become too “Westernized”

‘Honor Killings’ Trial: Yaser Said found guilty of killing his two daughters, sentenced to life in prison, by KFDW TV (Dallas, TX), August 9, 2022. Excerpt:

A Dallas jury unanimously found Yaser Said guilty of killing his two teen daughters on Tuesday.

It took jurors about three hours to convict Said for the deaths of his daughters Amina and Sarah in 2008. […]

Prosecutors said Said, a native of Egypt, was angry that his daughters were dating and that the boys were not Muslim. They claim in a 911 call from the night of the murders, Sarah said her father was attacking her.

They also presented an email from the girls to one of their teachers prior to the murder saying they feared their father would kill them.

The defense argued that the 911 call is not clear and that Said was targeted by investigators because he is a Muslim.

More:

Testimony on Day 4 of Yaser Said trial shares graphic details in teen girls’ murder, by Tanya Eiserer, WFAA-TV, August 5, 2022:

Apparently, the “Khalda” that this 11-year-old girl refers to is in Jordan:

Child bride [age 8] in Yemen dies of internal bleeding on wedding night: activist, Reuters, September 10, 2013. Excerpt:

An eight-year-old Yemeni girl died of internal bleeding on her wedding night after marrying a man five times her age, a social activist and two local residents said, in a case that has caused an outcry in the media and revived debate about child brides.

Arwa Othman, head of Yemen House of Folklore and a leading rights campaigner, said the girl, identified only as Rawan, was married to a 40-year-old man late last week in the town of Meedi in Hajjah province in northwestern Yemen.

“On the wedding night and after intercourse, she suffered from bleeding and uterine rupture which caused her death,” Othman told Reuters. “They took her to a clinic but the medics couldn’t save her life.”

Othman said authorities had not taken any action against the girl’s family or her husband. […]

Many poor families in Yemen marry off young daughters to save on the costs of bringing up a child and earn extra money from the dowry given to the girl.

Short video exposes double-standards regarding terrorism — depending on perpetrators, and victims

Hundreds watch as ISIS burns caged sex slaves to death, The Times (UK), June 8 2016.

Documentary: ISIS Sex Slave Raping & Selling Girls

My response is here.

My response is here.

Photo taken from ISIS slave market, where the Islamist totalitarians sell girls ages 9-18, to be used as rape slaves

Image

Pregnant at just 10, girl is trapped as sex slave in ISIS capital as aunt reveals children are beaten with cables by jihadi brides and ‘raped by 100 men’

Pregnant at just 10, girl is trapped as sex slave in ISIS capital as aunt reveals children are beaten with cables by jihadi brides and ‘raped by 100 men’, by Ian Birrell, Daily Mail (UK), February 23, 2019. Excerpt:

Marwa Khedr was just ten years old when Islamic State jihadis swept into her village in the Sinjar region of Iraq and rounded up all the families at gunpoint.

The men were buried alive in a mass grave, while the women and children were taken to a nearby town in the north of the country, where they were divided up by age.

The most prized, taken off by senior IS figures, were those aged between ten and 20.

This petrified group included Marwa, a member of the Yazidi persecuted minority religion. She had turned ten shortly before the appalling events in August 2014.

Yesterday, her aunt Mahdya, who has just escaped from Baghuz, the last holdout of the IS ‘caliphate’, told me that the final time she saw her niece, she was huddled with others in a market close to Hardan, where she lived, before being taken to the jihadi ‘capital’ of Raqqa.

Months later, a friend told Mahdya she had seen Marwa again and she was pregnant, despite her young age – one more grotesque sign of the barbarism inflicted by IS. It is not known where Marwa is now.

Pakistani TikToker sexually assaulted by mob of 400 men in public for hours, YahooNews, August 19, 2021. Excerpt:

A video showing a woman apparently getting groped and assaulted by a sizable mob in Pakistan has sparked online discussions about the treatment of women in the country.

The complaint: The victim, identified as female TikTok personality Ayesha Akram, went to Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park with her crew on Aug. 14 to film people celebrating Pakistan’s Independence Day near the Minar-e-Pakistan monument, reported Vice.

  • Groups of men started approaching Akram’s team, initially asking to take selfies, but it did not take long before the crowd swelled into around 400 men and things spiraled out of control.
  • The men surrounding Akram started allegedly assaulting her and tearing her clothes off. Individuals also forcibly took her ring and earrings, as well as her friend’s phone and identity card.

  • “I couldn’t understand anything. The people were torturing and fondling me. There is no part of my body that isn’t covered with bruises,” Akram later told a local outlet.

According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Pakistan’s population is 96.3 percent Muslim.

Yazidi sex slave reveals how she was kidnapped and sold EIGHT times to ISIS jihadis who pick out girls like they are on parade in a ‘car show room’, by Nick Fagge, Daily Mail (UK), March 18. 2016. Excerpt:

A Yazidi woman sold as a sex-slave eight times by an ISIS jihadi says she was put on parade like she was being picked out in a ‘car showroom’.

Khalida, 20, was kidnapped and taken to Raqqa where she was put on display in a ‘meat market’ where women are purchased for as little as a mobile phone, or simply given away as ‘gifts’.

The most beautiful women are put into a separate ‘VIP’ room where leaders can take their time choosing their favourite three or four girls each.

A Yazdi girl as she is being auctioned off to Saudi men

Khalida was bought by an old man with a white beard and kept in a small room where he raped her – and then beaten by his wife for ‘tempting’ her husband.

But it was only the beginning of the horror: she went on to endure months of daily abuse, torture and brutality at the hands as she was bought and sold by eight men.

The quiet, slight-framed, woman tried to kill herself many times to end her terrible ordeal and even tattooed her father’s name onto her arm so her body could be identified after her death.

The courageous young woman – who was held for 16 months, finally won her freedom after she convinced her ‘slave master’ to sell her back to her family for $24,000.

Now she bravely breaks her silence to tell the world of her people’s desperate plight.

Rapist is let off for sexually attacking a woman after agreeing to allow his sister to be raped by his victim’s brother in Pakistan, Daily Mail Online, March 26, 2018. Excerpt:

A shocking case of ‘revenge rape’ involving 12 members of two families has been unearthed by police in Punjab province, Pakistan.

A man had been accused of raping a woman in Pir Mahal in the Toba Tek Singh district on March 20.

Local news reports that the suspect’s family had approached the victim’s family for ‘pardon and reconciliation’.

The victim’s family agreed to pardon the rapist, on the condition that ‘her brother would commit the same act with the suspect’s sister’, dawn.com reports.

March 24, 2025

Iranian activist is sentenced to 178 lashes and 18 months in prison after she was arrested for not wearing a hijab | Daily Mail Online

My sarcastic take, on X:

I am looking forward to all the protests on US college and high school campuses, starting tomorrow, to denounce this.

And, professors and teachers offering students extra credit for attending these protests.

Hey, stop laughing, I’m serious. Stop it!!!

ISIS tightens its grip on its 3,000 sex slaves; Women who try to escape are beaten, raped or killed

Lamiya Aji Bashar, an 18-year-old Yazidi girl who escaped her ISIS enslavers (AP)

ISIS tightens its grip on its 3,000 sex slaves; Women who try to escape are beaten, raped or killed, AP, July 6, 2016. Excerpt:

The advertisement on the Telegram app is as chilling as it is incongruous: A girl for sale is “Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old…. Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon.”

The posting in Arabic appeared on an encrypted conversation along with ads for kittens, weapons and tactical gear. It was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with the minority Yazidi community, whose women and children are being held as sex slaves by the extremists. […]

In a fusion of ancient barbaric practices and modern technology, ISIS sells the women like chattel on smartphone apps and shares databases that contain their photographs and the names of their “owners” to prevent their escape through ISIS checkpoints. The fighters are assassinating smugglers who rescue the captives, just as funds to buy the women out of slavery are drying up.

“Screams Before Silence”: A 1-hour documentary that presents first-hand testimonies, and physical evidence of Hamas’s sexual savagery against Jewish women and girls, on 10/7

What Hamas and Gaza “civilians” did to Jewish Israeli females mimics what ISIS did to Yazidi female slaves, shown elsewhere on this page. The motivating ideology shared by Hamas and ISIS is almost identical: fundamentalist Sunni Islam, weaponized by imams who incite them to believe that sexually terrorizing females who are unbelievers, or polytheists, or atheists, is their divine obligation.

[CAUTION: GRAPHIC CONTENT]

My response is here.

Fatemeh Soltani, a Muslim girl in Iran, stabbed to death by her father – on video, because she achieved financial independence, moved out of family home

From Horrifying moment Iranian father ‘brutally stabs his 18-year-old beautician daughter to death in the street,’ Daily Mail Online, May 5, 2025. Excerpt:

She “had been working secretly at a beauty salon, refusing to tell her family about her job due to her fear of her father’s reaction. But her father managed to find her workplace by booking an appointment through a number listed on her business’ Instagram page.

When Fatemeh realised that her father was the one who made the appointment, she reportedly called her mother in distress. Fatemeh was killed on the salon’s doorstep, local media reports, with harrowing CCTV footage showing her father jumping out of his car, dragging her to the floor, kneeling over her and stabbing her repeatedly.

A close friend of the family told local media: ‘Fatemeh had been living separately from her father and the family for some time due to domestic violence and had achieved financial independence.’

My take, on social media, is here.

Afghan woman is beaten by Muslim mob, then burned alive — on video — after rumor that she committed blasphemy

Watch the raw video of the murder of Farkhunda Malikzada below. CAUTION: GRAPHIC. News story follows.

Beaten And Burned Alive: The Killing That Shook Afghanistan, Radio Free Europe, March 19, 2020 . Excerpt:

On March 19, 2015, a 27-year-old Afghan woman was beaten and burned alive in the very heart of Kabul by a mob of angry men.

Hundreds of people watched the killing of Farkhunda Malikzada, a student of the Koran and Islamic Shari’a law, while others participated in the rampage.

The mob’s outrage had been ignited by a false rumor that Farkhunda had blasphemed the Prophet Muhammad.

In fact, she had argued with a 60-year-old peddler about his practice of selling charms to women outside of an Islamic shrine in Kabul.

In the course of the argument, she was wrongly accused of blasphemy. The crowd on the street attacked her when they overheard the false accusation.

Image

Militants stone to death Somali rape victim, 13, NBC News, November 1, 2008. Excerpt:

A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

My commentary on this is here.

Syrian refugee ‘murders his “Westernised” daughter, 18, in honour killing and dumps her in a canal after she started dating local Dutch boy and wanted to stop wearing a headscarf,’ Daily Mail, June 6, 2024. Excerpt:

A Syrian refugee who fled to the Netherlands has reportedly confessed to murdering his 18-year-old daughter and dumping her body in a canal before fleeing the country in an apparent admission note sent to a Dutch newspaper.

Father-of-nine Khaled al-Najjar, 52, wrote in an email sent to De Telegraaf that he had killed his 18-year-old daughter Ryan al-Najjar, urging the publication to report ‘I am the one who killed’. […]

Ryan’s corpse was pulled out of the Knardijk canal in Lelystad on May 28, almost a week after her last sighting by neighbours by the family home in Joure some 30 miles away on May 22.

Documentary: Why are UK authorities ignoring honour killings?

Video: Pregnant 13-year-old Afghan girl, with her 54-year-old husband

Female Qur’anic scholar says Muslims are obligated to take rape slaves

A glimpse into the “modest” dress and behavior that Muslim females are compelled to abide by, even though they are living in the West — in this case, the UK:

FWIW: My take on this is here.

My take is here.

Abducted, shackled and forced to marry at 12, BBC, March 9, 2021. Excerpt:

Farah, a 12-year-old Christian girl, says she was taken from her home in Pakistan last summer, shackled, forced to convert to Islam and made to marry her kidnapper. It’s a fate estimated to befall hundreds of young Christian, Hindu and Sikh women and children in the country each year.

On 25 June, Farah was at home in Faisalabad, Pakistan’s third most populous city, with her grandfather, three brothers and two sisters when they heard knocking on their front door. She remembers her grandfather going to open it. Then three men burst in, grabbed Farah and forced her into a van outside.

They warned the family that if they tried to get her back “they’d make us regret it”, says Farah’s father, Asif, who was at work at the time.

Asif went to the nearest police station to report the crime – even providing the name of one of the abductors, whom Farah’s grandfather had recognised – but he says the officers showed little interest in helping. […]

During this time, 12-year-old Farah, who’d been driven 70 miles (110km) to a house in the nearby city of Hafizabad, says she was raped, shackled and treated like a slave. […]

“It’s hundreds, hundreds, many girls, many girls. This crime is committed by many people, and the authorities don’t do anything,” says the NCCP’s general secretary, Bishop Victor Azariah.

Monstrous lie luring British girls to be sex slaves for ISIS: Jihadis flood the internet with photos showing women as revered gun-toting fighters. But they just want them as playthings to torture and abuse, Daily Mail, August 21, 2015. Excerpt:

A pamphlet published by ISIS last December outlines the twisted rules of this fatwa, telling men when it is permissible to beat, rape or sell their slaves.

This appalling fact should be common knowledge throughout the world. Instead, because of the effectiveness of ISIS propaganda as it manipulates the social networks, many people do not understand the truth. […]

Women will be stripped and their bodies examined for breast size and attractiveness, before they are packed onto buses and transported to slave markets.

One of the Dohuk refugees, Maoon, 38, who worked as a translator for the Americans in Mosul, in Iraq after the war against Saddam Hussein, recounted the atrocities he had seen inflicted on Yazidi women who were taken prisoner.

He claims a woman who had refused to perform an extreme sex act saw her child killed in front of her and was forced to eat its flesh. It’s an extraordinary allegation — but, shockingly, consistent with other reports. Last week, another deeply disturbing revelation came to light: before her death earlier this year, 26-year-old Kayla Mueller, an American aid worker, was a sex slave for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the top leader of ISIS.American officials allegedly learned about this abuse after interviewing two Yazidi girls, 16 and 18, who escaped from the same compound where they were all held as sex slaves.

Zainab Bangura, a UN special representative on sexual violence, says ISIS has institutionalised sexual slavery as a terror tactic, to a degree of cruelty that she had not witnessed even in the civil wars of Bosnia, Sudan or Somalia.

‘I cannot understand such inhumanity,’ she says. ‘I was sick. We heard of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform a sex act.’

My response is here.

 RadioGenoa on X: “Women in Islam. https://t.co/My9juXiJQj” / X

Translation:

“This human being located in the Joret Al-Ballout area was seen torturing and beating the foreign worker in a barbaric and brutal manner. No one has morals or humanity anymore. How can you have a heart, you heartless person, hearing her scream like that and continuing to beat her! Where are the security forces? Why aren’t they arresting this conscienceless criminal!”

 

Australia’s top imam claims females wouldn’t be sexually assaulted by Muslims there if they were home where they should be, or covered from head to toe, to not effectively be “uncovered meat”

Sheik Taj El-Din Hilaly (centre) was anointed Grand Mufti of Australia by Queensland's long serving Imam Abdul Taub Raza at Logan Mosque in Brisbane on Friday 

Background: Just as has been the case in other Western nations, migrants from fundamentalist Muslim nations have caused a skyrocketing rate of rapes and sexual assaults against Australian females.

In response to this, Australia’s top imam, effectively the Muslim “pope” of the island nation, blamed the victims for what was done to them:

Outrage as Muslim cleric likens women to ‘uncovered meat,’ Daily Mail Online, October 26, 2006. Excerpt:

In a Ramadam sermon in a Sydney mosque, Sheik al-Hilali suggested that a group of Muslim men recently jailed for many years for gang rapes were not entirely to blame.

There were women, he said, who ‘sway suggestively’ and wore make-up and immodest dress “and then you get a judge without mercy and gives you 65 years. But the problem, but the problem all began with who?” he said, referring to the women victims.

Addressing 500 worshippers on the topic of adultery, Sheik al-Hilali added: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it..whose fault is it – the cats or the uncovered meat?

“The uncovered meat is the problem.”

He went on: “If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab (veil), no problem would have occurred.”

Australia’s Muslims reinstated him to the top position, in 2018

Islamic sheik is reinstated as Australia’s top Muslim cleric, Daily Mail Online, September 29, 2018. Excerpt:

A controversial Islamic sheik who compared uncovered women to ‘pieces of meat’ has been sworn in as Australia’s top Muslim cleric.

Sheik Taj El-Din Hilaly was appointed Grand Mufti of Australia by Queensland’s long serving Imam Abdul Taub Raza at Logan Mosque in Brisbane on Friday.

The event took place in front of fellow Imams, community leaders and worshippers, but not all leaders were made aware of the move.

My take is here.

Embed from Getty Images

Reminiscent of this: “Mother and three daughters stabbed ‘for being inappropriately dressed’,” MetroUK, July 19, 2016.

(8) Earlier examples of my work to raise awareness of these issues

I have spent an enormous amount of time since 2008, often on a self-funded basis, to figure out new ways to help puncture the wall of silence, and responsibly address the gap between (a) normal adolescents’ actual values — and (b) the reality of what is being kept from them. Or, in the case of the infographic report, below, what is also being spoon-fed to them, by the most influential, advertiser-backed “news” organizations.

SLIDE SHOW: Special report: The U.S. “news” media depicts an American terrorist and her son as “Madonna & Child” — by Jon Sutz, .

A visual analysis with deep documentation that reveals how America’s biggest “news” organizations glamorized, whitewashed and championed the cause of an ISIS bride. The full report, with source evidence, is here.

 

Who benefits from the lies being spread about the “caravans”? Woman and child sex traffickers — by Jon Sutz, November 3, 2018.

I wrote this report — actually a sub-report from a larger one — for the website I used to edit, SaveTheWest.com. It was in response to the “news” media glossing over the data showing the horrors being allowed onto American soil, while labeling anyone who was concerned about them “white supremacists” or “xenophobes,” who “sound just like Trump.”

 

Project Nehad: A volunteer organization I created in 2015 to help a 17-year-old female ISIS rape slave, Nehad Barkat, to heal, and obtain whatever medical, dental and psychological support she needed, starting by relocating to a breathtaking horse ranch in central Virginia, that was owned by a friend of mine.

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